


rain on the windows

by aeicx



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: 100 days of caulscott drabble challenge, Angst, F/M, Fluff, come here if you're looking for a quickie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 06:07:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5901208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeicx/pseuds/aeicx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is an abundance, an infinite supply of possible universes that they breathe in. In some of them, they touch. In others, they don't.</p><p>Neither of them have had time to process this—but then again, neither of them are wasting time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. void

**Author's Note:**

> A hundred days of caulscott! That's a lot. Hopefully I can get this finished!
> 
> Chapters are usually not connected. Requests are open. Have fun!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> au; chloe and warren break into the dark room to save max. nathan shoots jefferson, and warren is knocked out. 
> 
> everyone's kind of screwed.

“Nathan.” She’s holding out her hands, limbs taught and frozen in place. “Nathan, please put down the gun.” Max's voice only shakes slightly, to her great surprise, considering that there’s a pistol being pointed at her by a very, very frightened boy who may or may not have just shot Max’s old photography teacher to death.

Behind Nathan, Warren’s lying on the floor in the corner, unconscious from a former blow to the head. Chloe’s still hunched over Jefferson’s lifeless body, motionless and halfway through ransacking his pockets. She’s skewing her head back and forth, slowly, looking from Nathan to Max. And back again.

Max has no idea what the fuck she’s doing. It’s near impossible to keep an eye on Chloe in her peripheral, so she zeroes on Nathan by closing her eyes and opening her mouth to speak.

“Stop moving!” he bellows. The gun trembles along with his hand.

“I’m not,” Max says. Her voice is quiet, hands still in the air. Her arms are quickly starting to get sore.

“Nathan,” she says again. “Please put the gun down.”

“What, so you can take it away from me? So you can fuck me over and throw me away once you’re done with me? And pull the same shit as him?” Nathan throws a cursory nod at Jefferson’s limp form before his voice cracks.

“No, I won’t.” Max’s voice is pleading. “I wouldn’t, I—“

“You were with her,” Nathan says now, and he’s desperate. There’s that jolt in his wrist again. Max is familiar with it; she’d spend many hours in the night just lying down next to him, tracing circles over the back of his hands and legs, locked in occasional periods of muscle spasms. Feeling the occasional jerk of his limbs, holding him in her arms.

“You were working with her. You lied to me, everything was a lie. And now—now you’re going to lock me up and it’ll be the same. You’ll throw me away, just like my fucking dad did—and him, and—and—“

“Nathan!” Max’s eyes fly open and she loses her grip for a split second, shocked. “How could you say that?”

“You lied to me, Max,” Nathan chokes. “You lied to me. You said you—“

“I do! I do, and I have. For all this time. Always.”

Nathan holds his grip. His eyes are red. Wet.

After this, Max will rewind far, far back, as far as she can. Until she can leave the dark room, before she’s even entered. She’ll rewind and trace all of Jefferson’s steps until she can find a way to stop this. She’ll rewind, without hurting Nathan.

“Do you honestly think I would leave you?” Her eyes blur with tears, so she can’t quite tell if Nathan’s hold on his pistol is slackening or not. She may just be imagining it. “Nathan, I love you.”

“Don’t give me that fucking bullshit,” Nathan growls, but his grip really does work loose, and he’s unsure. Unsteady.

“Please, please trust me. Please. We came here to rescue you, not to do that. Not to…not to lock you up.”

There’s something that shifts in Nathan’s expression. His form. His eyes don’t loosen, but narrow, straining beyond doubt. But it’s in sadness, and grief. And it’s there. It’s in pain and confusion and loss and he’s just broken. That’s all there is to it.

Max hears something. It’s a little bit like a gunshot, and a little bit like a scream, shrill and shattering. It’s a little bit like the sound of Nathan’s voice, and it’s distorted and piercing. But he’s never screamed like that, not ever. That can’t be him.

In her stupor, she sees Warren, standing behind Chloe. His eyes are wide and alert, trained past the gun in his hands and on the bullet lodged into Max’s stomach.

“Max!” Chloe shrieks.

“I—“ Max begins, and Nathan rushes forward just in time to catch her as she falls.

Nathan whips around and looks at Warren. His eyes are blazing. Both of their guns clatter to the floor at the same time, and suddenly everyone’s rushing to Max, who’s gasping and lying on the floor with warm, sticky blood on her shirt.

“What the fuck did you do?” Chloe bellows. She’s taking off her jacket and folding it up, pressing the fabric against the wound.

“I was—I was trying to aim for him! I didn’t—I don’t—“ Warren falls back onto the floor, staring at Max’s twitching form in horror. “I’m so sorr—“

“Max!” Nathan screams. “Max, Max, Max, Max, stay with me, stay with me, Max, stay with me please oh please don’t die please don’t die please.” He cradles her face in his hands. Her breath is labored.

Chloe juts out two fingers to press against Max’s neck, testing her pulse. Her face drains of color. “Max,” Chloe says. “Rewind, now!”

Nathan has no idea what that means. Maybe the panic has made Chloe delirious and finally shoved her out of all mental precincts, screeching incoherent delusions that don’t even make sense.

Strangely, Nathan suddenly thinks that, if not for all the blood and her eyes, wide and fluttering, Max would look quite asleep. With her hand resting against the blood-soaked cloth and her form stretched out level against the floor, she looks almost as she does in slumber.

He’s babbling now. “No, no, no, no, no. Stay with me, stay with me, please—“

She reaches out, and Nathan seizes her bloodied hand. “Please, Max,” he sobs, and he rests his head against Max’s hand, squeezing his eyes shut. “Please. Please. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Max!” Chloe howls. Cries. “Fucking rewind, what the fuck are you doing? Rewind, rewind!”

Max is panting. Her eyes struggle to focus, and in one moment, she sees Nathan.

“I,” she breathes. She shudders, teeth chattering, and her hand falls slack.


	2. trope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> au; max is one of Jefferson's victims. 
> 
> she doesn't make it.

It’s not fair. It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not fair.

“What’s not fair?”

Nathan doesn’t know what he’s drinking. He doesn’t care. Whatever it is, it burns and leaves a bitter taste to his tongue. It’s enough.

He hates alcohol. It’s the smell of scotch that makes Victoria wrinkle her nose the morning he shows up to school with makeup on his face. Logan used to laugh at the flesh-toned tint that had accidentally rubbed off onto his sleeve one day—Victoria had then pulled Nathan aside and taught him to dab at the concealer with a sponge to blend it better.

The bruises were practically invisible. Other days, he would just stay in his dorm.

“What’s not fair?” she says again.

Nathan stares at her, eyes hooded and hazy. He can’t tell if it’s the booze or the lack of sleep, but everything is either too dark or too bright. There’s an incandescent flourish demarcating the edge to Max’s form against the dim lighting. She’s sitting on the floor of his dorm room, cross-legged. Alert.

“You should really slow down, Nathan. Your casket will probably hold a warning label for intoxication.”

“That makes one of us. And I’ll be cremated when I die, not buried.”

Max sighs, shaking her head. “Where’s Victoria?”

Nathan slams his glass down and leans forward, pressing his forehead against the carpet and closing his eyes. His nose squashes with the compression.

“Mourning, probably,” he says. “I don’t fucking know.” He lifts his head, slowly, tone softening somewhat.

“…Max?” He looks up.

“I’m here.”

“Oh.”

He grabs the glass and pours himself some more liquor. The smell is revolting. It’ll cling to his breath and hair and skin for a good portion of tomorrow.

Assuming there is a tomorrow. Drinking himself to death doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.

“Nathan,” Max says. She’s leaning in front of him now, suddenly reaching forward to tug at the glass in his hand. Her fingers curl around his own, gently. He can’t feel them. “Stop.”

Nathan blinks. 

“You promised,” she says. “Please.”

He could take one draft, just one more. Maybe even a couple more. A hundred more. There’s no one around to stop him anymore, after all. Not her. He could drink, or dump it down the sink. Right now.

Instead, he tosses his drink at her, withholding the glass in his hand as pellucid brown liquid seeps, quite literally, through her and into the carpet. She doesn’t yelp or protest, because there aren’t any clothes to ruin, nor any skin to lick it off of. Max watches the liquor bleed through his flooring. She tucks her lower lip, smiling sadly. The light to her outline falters.

“You,” he croaks, raising a hand to her face. He cups her cheek and she takes his hand in her own, closing her eyes. 

If he can feel anything, it’s a divide, a frangible metonymy for the warmth of her skin and the firmness in her fingers. He can sense neither. Just a blank gap, a pathetic substitute for the one thing he’d only ever wanted.

“You’re not real.” And, just because it hurts: ”Are you?”

Max smiles. “Not if you don’t want me to be.” Her image flickers briefly, and just like that, she’s gone.

He's hollow, broken.


	3. test

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one of the most obvious chapter titles in existence.

“Max.” She turns around, gloved hands plunged into the sink as she works a sponge on the grimy pan. Nathan stands in the middle of the doorway, holding something in his hand. He looks dazed.

“What’s wrong?”

“Is this yours?” Nathan offers said item held within his grip.

Max freezes.

*

They’ve been together for three years. If there’s anything Max could say about living with Nathan, it’s that he’s strangely unaffected by the dreary weather of Seattle. He’s not without his moments, of course—sitting by the window and sipping tea, contemplating whatever he can as rain pours down outside. Sitting cross-legged on his bed, staring at the photos he’s taken while on campus for the past month. Not organizing them a certain way, nor planning what to do with them. Just sitting and staring.

It’s in these moments that Max would wonder, in the first few months of their relationship, as to whether or not he would have been happier residing somewhere else, alone. Or perhaps with a friend. Perhaps in California, with Hayden or someone else, studying and partying and free to roam about as he pleases. Not that he couldn’t do that here, but resorting to a partially nomadic lifestyle on the busy streets of New York with Victoria and his camera hadn’t sounded so bad, either.

But Nathan has come here quite out of his own free will, and the pile of half-empty hair gel containers in the bathroom cabinet attests to that. Max holds his hand tight and smiles a little wider each day.

“Why done we eb—er srow dose out?” he asks one morning, through a mouthful of toothpaste.

Max shrugs. “Why don’t you throw them out each time after you finish using them?” She splashes warm water on her face and the foam of her cleanser disappears in patches. Max peeks out of her right eye; Nathan’s leaning against the bathroom counter, shirtless, angling his head this way and that as he brushes his teeth. She giggles, glancing at his boxers—the cartoonish, smiling whales are almost a direct disparity against the oddly focused expression on his face as he eyes the cabinet.

Nathan looks up to meet her eyes. Max washes off the rest of the soap and wipes her face with a towel before walking over.

He rinses, spits out the water and runs his toothbrush under the faucet. “What’s up?”

She props herself up on her toes and kisses the furrow in his brow. “Nothing.”

Nathan cocks his head. “Yeah?” He slides an arm under hers, around her waist, leaning in and cupping one side of her face with his hand. Her hands automatically grab his shoulders, leaning in.

Right as their lips meet, their teeth bump against each other and they fall apart, laughing.

*

“Is this yours?” Nathan says again.

Max stares at the bit of plastic in his hand, mouth opening and closing, opening and closing again. The pregnancy test reads a plus sign, big and blue; perhaps even more vivid than the last time she’d seen it.

Had it been that striking for Nathan? Had he stood there, in front of the countertop, checking the test at each and every angle to be sure it wasn’t some sort of cruel joke? If it was just a fake? How had he even found it? Max is sure she’d wrapped it in toilet paper and tossed it away. Hadn’t she?

Nathan walks up to her. His eyes are hazy. Puzzled. Bewildered. Angry?

“Are you mad?” Max whispers. She draws her hands out from the rubber gloves, fingers trembling and all.

Nathan blinks. “Mad? What are you talking about?”

Max has seen Nathan get mad, even furious, but never at her. He guards her close to his heart, a locket to which only few hold the key. Some nights, he will squeeze her tight after waking from nightmares that leave him shaking and trembling. She presses chaste kisses to the back of his neck and rubs warm circles into his back while he sleeps.

He is no longer made of glass, but Max fears that one day, he will break.

“I—“ she begins. She bites her lips. Where to start?

“I didn’t…I didn’t know. I didn’t know what to tell you.”

“When did this happen?” Nathan’s expression is permeated with shock. It’s an exponential tint; she can see the confusion rapidly being replaced with blatant stupor.

“Uh. I, uh. Maybe…” _Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck._ “…A week ago?”

“A week ago?” Nathan says. His voice is so small.

“Yes,” Max admits, at a loss now. “I’m…I’m pregnant.”

Nathan’s face crumbles. His expression is unreadable. He collapses into a chair next to him, hunched over, eyes glued onto nothing. “Pregnant,” he echoes. “Pregnant.”

“Yeah,” Max says. She kneels down in front of him, resting her hands on his knees. He immediately takes them in his own. “Are you okay?”

“No. Are you?”

“I don’t know.”

They sit in silence. Nathan’s eyes train onto hers. “What do you wanna do?”

Max does not meet his eyes. “I don’t know,” she says again.

“Well,” Nathan says, and he grips her hand tighter, with more force. “Well, whatever you want to do, I’m here. And I’m—I’m in this. W-with you. You and me, together.”

Max shakes her head. “What if I decide to keep it?” She knows it’s not likely—or is it? She has no idea. She can’t help but ask.

Nathan leans forward and rests his forehead against hers. “Then I’m here for you. I’ll be with you, no matter what the fuck happens. But I don’t know if I’ll be a good—a good dad, Max. I don’t know. What if,” he says, and he puts his face in his hands, voice muffled and cracking and petrified. “What if I fuck up? What if I hurt you, or—or the kid? What if—what if I end up like him—“

“No,” Max says, firmly. Nathan looks up. “You won’t. You’re not your father, Nathan. What we have is between us. Nothing that happened with him will ride on you. I believe in you, and me. We’re in this together.”

Nathan sits in silence. Has she made it worse?

Suddenly, he reaches out and presses the palm of his hand against her stomach, between her hipbones. “You really think so?”

Max rolls her eyes. “There’s nothing there at the moment, but yeah. I know so.”

He kisses her softly. “Pregnant,” he says. “You’re pregnant. And it’s—I’m the dad?”

“Not unless I’ve been sleeping with some other guy. Or I’ve secretly been visiting sperm donor centers with the intention of spiting you and forcing you into cohabitation with me, forever.” Nathan smiles. “Shit, did I just say that out loud? Oh, well. Guess you’ve cracked my code.”

“I love you,” Nathan says, plain and simple. He pecks the tip of Max’s nose. “Whatever happens, we’ll stay together. I promise.”

She kisses him. “I believe you.”


	4. touch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw; mentions of sexual abuse/assault (a.k.a. jeffershit).
> 
> cw; things get steamy (?)

Nathan is a bit light-headed.

It’s not to say that he doesn’t like kissing. Nathan does, in fact, enjoy kissing. Quite a bit, actually. He’ll move against Max and everything kind of fades into the background. It’s all natural, everything. There’s a sort of rhythm to it, a gentle swing to which they move. Max curls her fingers into the fabric of his shirt and sets her other hand on his shoulder. Nathan runs his fingers through her hair and feels something hot spread through his chest. It’s warmth, but it’s different from the warmth he would feel whenever his sister would tuck him into bed, or when Victoria would show up at his dorm with a plastic baggie after a particularly rough day. It’s heat, hot and desperate, and it clings to his lungs when he kisses her for too long because sometimes he’ll just forget to breathe.

It’s all Max, just Max, Max, Max, and it’s her and her breath and her lips trailing kisses on his jawline, gently. It’s her, pinching his cheeks and laughing when he tries to scowl because his cheeks flap out and your skin’s so stretchy, Nathan, why are you frowning like that? Are you angry now? Why don’t we go out and have some lunch, it’s already one—

Max tugs on Nathan’s shoulders, gently lowering him down with her against the couch. He runs his tongue over her lower lip and she makes a noise that sounds remarkably like a moan, but he’s not completely sure. Not entirely.

Nathan rests his knee between her legs. Max shifts her weight down, and collides with his thigh. Right there. She gasps and pulls back for a split second before pressing her lips against his again, and tangles his hair in her hands. Mark lifts Nathan’s shirt up, grazing the hem of his pants and touching the skin of his stomach—

Nathan stops.

He cannot breathe.

It takes Max all of five seconds to register that something is wrong. She pulls back and looks at Nathan, who looks dumbstruck.

Terrified, even.

“Hey,” she says, and looks up at him. Her face is flushed as he, but a bead of sweat is rolling down his cheek, and Max reaches forward to wipe it away. Nathan recoils so violently that she jumps, arousal quickly fading away, and he’s hunched over on the opposite side of the couch, eyes screwed tight, breathing labored, and hands clenched until his knuckles turn white.

“I—sorry, I—“ he begins, but Max interrupts him at once.

“No, no, no, no, no. I’m sorry, Nathan. Are you okay? I’m sorry. I should have asked first, I—“

“It’s—it’s not that. I just,” he begins, blinking rapidly. “I just.”

He bursts into tears.

Tears flow down his cheeks, frightening and wet and warm. Disgusting, he thinks. He curls into a ball and he feels so fucking pathetic, and it’s like he can’t do anything. This is his fault, this is all his fault, he can’t do anything and it’s at the most inconvenient time too and he can’t do anything this is all his fault all his fault disgusting sick all his fault pathetic all his fault disgusting.

“Nathan,” Max says. “Can I touch you?”

He stays where he is, and slowly, slowly leans into her, until he’s close enough for her to take him in her arms, whispering.

“It’s okay. I’ve got you, I’ve got you. It’s okay.”

She runs her hand through his hair and rocks back and forth with him. Just them, sitting on the couch as he cries.

It’s warmth, but it’s of a different sort than he’s used to.


	5. savior

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> au; who would have ever guessed that mermaids could be so proficient in performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw; mentions of domestic abuse and suicide. also, drowning.

Nathan is sick of attending parties. Especially on cruise ships.

Well, sort of. It’s rather that he’s sick of the people there. All the formalities, the business talk. Mentally scanning a list of all the ways he’d like to be spending his time right now, attending another one of his parents’ trade gatherings ranks right below “rolling around in barbed wire”.

“Tell me, what are your plans after you graduate?”

_To get out of this godforsaken family, what the fuck do you think?_

“How is Kristine, by the way? She was so charming. I’d been meaning to speak with her ever since that last meeting—“

_You wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about her if she weren’t his daughter._

“I’d love to see your work. Have you gathered a portfolio?”

_Yeah, of course. I brought my imaginary portfolio, just so you could take a gander at it for all of five seconds and toss it back at my face with that fucking fake smile of yours. No, what the hell do you think?_

Nathan hates it. He hates it when they act like they know him, when they grab his hand, fervently shaking it and glancing back his father every so often. Like a crying child that checks out of the corner of his eye to see whether or not his mother will relent, and allot the candy accordingly.

At least he can drink in peace. His dad couldn’t care less about how wasted he gets, as long as the other guests get there before he does. It’s midnight, and Nathan’s had three glasses of wine. He accidentally knocks into someone on the way out to the deck, walking a straight path that blurs in all the wrong places.

It’s fine. Nobody will notice.

Out here, he can breathe. He can watch the waves and feel a little sick whenever the ship rocks too hard, and it’s better. He can breathe.

It’s raining.

“Jesus Christ,” Nathan murmurs, shielding his hair with one arm—as though a flimsy blazer sleeve is going to do anything to protect his gelled coiffure. It took a while to get it done. It usually does.

This is annoying. He’s going to have to get his hair put back in place in the men’s room, or his dad will give him shit for “failing to sustain refinement”, or whatever—especially since he’ll be drawling with whiskey pasted to whatever bit of censure he’ll throw at his son for the rest of the night. Nathan’s stomach turns at the thought. At least he won’t hit him. Not in front of all the other guests.

Suddenly, the ship lurches, and Nathan’s thrown against the railing. He groans, feeling the familiar throbbing in his appendage that he gets whenever he’s—well, whenever he’s thrown against any sort of hard object. Which, he admits, has happened more times than he can actually care to count.

There’s someone else leaning into him—probably slid on the floor or something, no doubt—who’s just as disheveled as he is.

“Sorry,” he says. He’s not.  _Watch where you’re going,_  he wants to snap, but he’s drunk and at a business party on a cruise ship, no less. And to be honest, it’s really quite slippery, and he knows that it’s not really the other person’s fault for crashing against him.

“Are you, uh. Are you okay?” he says, holding out a hand.

The person—a girl, thin and mousy, dressed in a pale blue, loose dress—sits there for a moment, against the slick flooring of the deck, staring at his hand. She then gets up, moves to the railing beside him, and stays there, motionless.

“Guess not,” Nathan breathes, and he’s irritated, because who the fuck does that? Who brushes him off after he offers his hand, trying to help them up, even when he’s in a bad—

There’s a loud creak and a splash, but before Nathan notices that the spot where the girl had just been standing is now quite empty, save for the small puddle to his right, he turns to see that the deck is practically devoid of any other guests. Because it’s twelve in the morning, and why stay out here when there are middle-aged rich businessmen feasting on cheese and wine under a dry roof?

There’s a moment in which he kind of lets his mind reel for a moment, just processing all of this.

Holy fucking shit.

Sure enough, when Nathan leans over the railing and peers down at the water, he can make out a distinct circle of tight ripples, with what looks remarkably like a head bobbing in the center.

He’s about to open his mouth and—and call for help? Scream? What?—when there’s a deafening  _thud_ , a crack of thunder, and a lurch in the vessel that sends him flying over the edge of the boat and down, down, down into the water.

He’s airborne, soaring through the rain.

He’s drowning.

Fear and sheer coldness grip his muscles like a vice, paralyzing him from head to toe and rendering him immobile. The shock ripples through his system, cutting through the alcohol and the anger and the exasperation and he cannot breathe. There is water in his lungs, water in his nose and in his eyes.

_I’m going to die._

Maybe, in death, he’ll have a house all to himself. Maybe he’ll go back to Florida, away from his family and away from all of his responsibilities. Just him and his camera. Just him and Victoria. Or his sister, and all of his friends. The ones that never gave him shit for not keeping up with appearances. The ones that always took it to heart whenever he’d tell them to fuck off, because he’d taken another blow from his father after talking back and he hadn’t meant it, really, he’d just had enough of being around people. And they understood. Not all the time, but they’d know, and that was always enough.

Maybe it won’t hurt as bad as he'd first tried to make it.

Maybe he’ll be gone from shock.

Maybe dying won’t be so bad after all.

When Nathan opens his eyes, he’s seeing through tendrils of dark hair as a pair of lips move against his own.

They’re soft to the touch. When the girl pulls back, it’s daytime, and Nathan is hacking up water with bloodshot eyes. He’s coughing and choking, struggling to catch his breath, and the girl thumps him on the chest with such immense force that he yelps as a burst of water flies from his lips and catches onto the sand.

His body falls limp, but he’s somewhat more awake than before. Dazed, really, but it’s a start.

The girl is propped up on her hands, hovering over him. He’s seen her before. Somewhere.

“The ship,” Nathan croaks, and the girl cocks her head. “You fell from the…ship.”

Her eyelashes are so very, very long, and her eyes so very, very blue. She’s beautiful, but her expression is lost in a mix of confusion and interest. Or maybe it’s just one or the other. He can’t tell.

The girl fades in and out; his vision is swimming, head pounding, tongue like sandpaper against the roof of his mouth. Grains of sand tumble from the girl’s shoulders and neck, and with an odd start, Nathan quickly realizes that she’s shirtless, if not naked altogether.

“What’s your name?” she whispers. Her voice is gentle, rhythm akin to that of a familiar mantra. Something blue glints in the distance, and it’s not in her eyes.

“Nathan,” he rasps.

The sun is practically burning his face, but that doesn’t stop him from slipping back into unconsciousness.

* * *

 

When Nathan wakes up, Kristine is prodding him awake in the hospital ward. A few other guests had fallen from the ship, she says, and he shudders in relief. He’s alive. He scans the vicinity and asks his sister if they’d found the girl who jumped.

Who? Kristine crinkles her nose. He realizes it’s a vague descriptor, and traces every detail he can call to mind. The freckles, the eyes, the hair. The voice.

Kristine shakes her head. She’d visited every single one of the hospital rooms in her attempt to locate his ward—he’d been the last one. All the ones who’d ever fallen off had either been old women or drunken middle-aged men.

“It’s funny you should mention that, though,” Kristine says, smiling. She ruffles his hair, and he frowns. “I’ve been to the beach where we found you plenty of times before. It’s called Naiad Front. You used to play there all the time when we were kids.”

Nathan dreams every night, but he’s never had it this bad in his life.


	6. numb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> au; domestic. after three months, max still hasn't come back from her business trip.
> 
> no one's found the plane. yet.
> 
> they can only hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all of your kind comments on the recent chapters! Your encouragement motivates me all the more.
> 
> Enjoy your weekend!

“Aunt Chloe?”

“Yeah?”

“When is mommy coming back?”

At the age of five, Kristine Prescott-Caulfield is small and quiet, with strawberry blonde curls that tumble over her shoulders and glint gold in the sunlight. She looks beautiful—like her mother, Chloe thinks, but she hasn’t said that for the past three months, let alone years.

The house is suffocating in its silence.

Chloe looks at the empty cardboard boxes piled up in the corner. She’s seen Max’s possessions get wrapped, unpacked, packed, and unpacked all over again; thrown carelessly in and out of boxes for donations, because—according to Nathan’s mother—good riddance, wouldn’t it be so much easier to just watch it all disappear at once?

As Max’s old shirts, books, and cameras are pulled from the boxes once, twice, three times, Chloe watches Kristine study her father—plodding through the hallways of their home in silence. At other times, he is frantic, as though he has had too much coffee and doesn’t know how else to cope with the rush, other than by wringing his hands and snapping left and right.

He yells at Chloe when she tries to help him pack, ripping Max’s old sweater out of her hands and suggesting that she make herself useful with some other odd job.

“Well, what the fuck do you want me to do? You’re the one who asked me to come in,” Chloe says. She’s used to his moods, but that doesn’t stop her from rolling her eyes.

Nathan twists his face like he’s just sucked on a lemon. “Can you take Kristy to the park?”

Chloe pauses. Her ears siphon the nickname through his words, like she’s just been tipped off about a governmental conspiracy through Morse code. “Sure.”

Before they head out the door, Kristine plops down on the last step of the staircase and raises her sneakers, loose shoelaces and all, in the air.

Chloe chuckles. “So entitled,” she says, and Kristine cocks her head and asks, “What does _entitled_ mean?” before saying, “No, I want daddy to do it.”

“Your dad’s not feeling well, Kristy,” Chloe says, because there’s no fucking way she’s going to call Nathan Prescott _daddy,_ no matter how many years they’ve known each other, and because he’s practically been barking up and down at the entire house for the past seven hours.

 “I want daddy to do it.”

Kristine looks Chloe in the eye, not blinking.

“Okay,” Chloe says. “Hey, Prescott!”

“What the fuck are you still doing here, woman?”

“Your kid. Shoelaces. Now.”

Before she knows it, Nathan is trudging down the stairs with death in his eyes. The moment he looks at Kristine, however, his gaze softens immensely, and he leans over to knot her laces. Twice.

“Don’t run if they get untangled, honey,” he says.

“Okay,” Kristine says. She kisses him on the forehead. “Can you come with us?”

Chloe’s leaning against the doorway when she opens her mouth. “Yeah, Nathan. Why don’t you come along for the ride?”

* * *

“When is mommy coming back?”

Nathan, who’s riding in the passenger seat of Chloe’s old truck, remains silent, because there’s no way to answer that question; just as there’s no way to tell a five-year-old girl why there’s no funeral procession being held for her mother. Yet. Chloe’s hands grip the steering wheel a little tighter.

“She’s on a trip, right? For her camera,” Kristine says. Buckled into her car seat in the back, she touches the tip of her teddy bear’s nose—Max’s old one, the Captain. She’d tucked it in her bag on the way out the door.

“Yeah,” Chloe says, and she can see Nathan looking at her through her peripheral vision. “She was.”

* * *

“You have to tell her.” They’re sitting on a bench, fixed to an old picnic table next to the playground. Children dart back and forth on the woodchips piled under the slides and monkey bars. Chloe watches Kristine sit on the swings, holding the Captain in one hand as she kicks her feet in the air.

Nathan is silent.

“She’s not coming ba—“

“Shut up,” Nathan says.

“Yeah?” Chloe says. It’s not a question. It’s a challenge, and she turns her head and sees that the skin stretched over Nathan’s knuckles is as white as his teeth. He’s gritting them.

He has no right.

“You’re being really fucking selfish.” Chloe’s glaring at him now. “You can’t admit to your own daughter that your wife’s _dead._ ” She spits out that last word, like she’s deliberately trying to hurt herself.

Suddenly, Nathan’s muscles go loose, like she’s just deflated him. The line of muscle in his jaw falls slack under his flesh. His anger floats and disappears altogether when he looks up at Kristine, and Chloe can tell that he’s tired, just tired, because being angry doesn’t solve anything but it fucking _hurts_ not to be.

“She’s not dead,” he says, weakly. He looks at her, almost like he’s seeking reassurance, because at this point, neither of them are trying. Just hopeful, because that’s all they can manage. “They said—the plane—they didn’t find it—“

Chloe’s not sure how long it’s been since Nathan’s said her name. Max. Max, Max, Max. It’s only ever _she,_ or _her,_ as if saying her name will finally open his eyes, and that’s the last thing that he wants.

“It’s been months,” Chloe says shortly, and Nathan looks down at his fingers.

“She hasn’t cried once,” Nathan says. “Not since she left.”

Chloe’s eyes widen at once. “What the fuck are you talking about?” she asks, and she looks at him like he’s nuts, because what kid doesn’t cry when her mother’s been gone for a long time?

What is three months to a five-year-old?

“Do you know how many times she’s cried herself to sleep in my bed? How many times I’ve seen her sitting alone in her room? What the fuck is your problem?” Chloe demands, and she’s so angry and she can’t understand why the daughter of the girl she loved is going through this, why Chloe’s putting up with this shit. Why she hasn’t just picked Kristine up from school, like any other day, and whisked her away to somewhere else; somewhere she can laugh, instead of sitting around and watching her father storm the empty house in silence.

Nathan’s mouth hangs open by an inch. He’s lost, and she wants to punch him.

“You’re not the only one,” Chloe says.

They sit in silence.

* * *

Nathan spends a lot of time sitting in his room. It’s only four days after that he comes out while Chloe’s playing house with Kristine, and they’re halfway through a tea party when Nathan sits down on the couch and just watches them.

Chloe kneels against the miniature table, far too tall for this game, and sips from her cup. It's actually holding liquid, because Kate’s instilled her love for tea into the Prescott family’s only granddaughter from a young age, and because Chloe always helps Kristine prepare it when they play house.

She stays at their house for hours, spends the nights and eats breakfast with her and Nathan, and leaves for work in the afternoon on some days. She does anything and everything for Kristine, and she wants to say that it’s because she loves her, but she also knows that it’s because she’s Max’s daughter, and she’s not sure what she would do if it weren’t for Kristine. She’s not sure what Nathan would do without her, either.

“Mr. Captain, would you like some Earl Grey? The Duchess helped prepare it.”

In Kristine’s games, Chloe is always the Duchess, and Nathan the King. She never asks who the Queen is. She already knows.

“This drink has quite the zing to it. Don’t you think so?”

Chloe has a sudden recollection of sitting in a tiny chair across from Max. They were six, close to Kristine’s age, playing make-believe and surrounded by mismatched cups and burnt kettles. They were young and Chloe’s father had been, too, because he was alive and happy and that was all that had ever mattered.

Kristine looks up at Nathan. He’s sitting on the couch, fingers twitching, eyes hazy. Wondering.

“I miss you, too,” she echoes.

Nathan freezes.

She turns to look at Chloe, then, and her eyes are sad and she’s smiling, almost wistful.

Something in Chloe’s gut twists and her chest tightens, and suddenly all she can see is Max, like she’s really there, sitting across from Chloe; surrounded by clean teapots and plush, soft animals with empty hearts that will never, ever be as warm as Max’s hands. Not her, her voice, or her laugh. It will never be the same.

“I wish you were here,” Max and Kristine both say, and their voices mesh in unison in this dream world where everything is fine, and Chloe realizes that Max is gone, really gone, and she’s never coming back.

And she blinks back to reality, and Kristine’s back in front of her, holding her teacup, shuddering and gasping as thick tears pour down her cheeks.

Nathan is wide-eyed, shocked, and Chloe knows.

He felt it, too.

“Mommy,” Kristine cries, and drops the teacup before it shatters into bits and pieces, porcelain mixed with tea scattered all over the floor. Nathan and Chloe rush to her side at the same time.

Nathan picks her up off the floor. She clutches onto him for dear life, sobbing and wailing, and Chloe watches while her heart breaks a little.

“I w-want to see her,” Kristine blubbers. “I want to see her.”

Nathan’s face is wet with tears. He strokes her hair with shaking fingers, watching Chloe as his daughter’s cries reverberate throughout the household, past the unwashed dishes in the sink and through the boxes in Max’s room, full of her mother’s old clothes, unsure as to where they’re going.

“I know,” Nathan says, and Chloe doesn’t know it but she’s crying, too, because she misses Max. So, so much.

“I know.”


	7. soliloquy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathan is busy, and Max and Warren have been talking.

There was something, Max thinks, that she couldn’t quite lay her finger on. Or maybe she could—maybe it was completely possible for her to have placed it, that odd element in their interaction that she’d been trying to define for the past few months.

“You sure you don’t need my jacket?” Warren asks. It’s drizzling a bit in the neighborhood. It’ll clear up, she thinks, so Max shakes her head with a small smile. “I’m good.”

“If you’re sure,” Warren says, shrugging, and he opens the door, gesturing accordingly. She passes with a small _thanks_.

In his voice, Max hears a trace of the persistence that she’d had the unfortunate (though slightly endearing) task of handling five years ago. It’s nowhere near unrelenting now, only just bordering on charming.

Reunion after high school can be an odd thing. There’s a hint of nostalgia in the space between them that drives Max’s grins and laughter. It had been purely by chance that Warren had happened to attend the same university as Max, and she finds he has changed—and in more ways than one, at that.

He is taller, with broad shoulders and a chiseled jawline, hands callused from a the past six hours spent at his part-time job (“Moving shit can earn you some good dough, if your customer’s not a total bitch”). Yet his voice is permeated with a constant fervor in the manner that he speaks of his position in whichever undergraduate internship program he works, in the same way he’d rambled of chaos theory and Doctor Who in his senior year at Blackwell. The gleam in his eyes, she finds, is often incited by way of bringing up anything even remotely related to League of Legends (“What do you mean, ‘Warcraft’?”), cats, or chemistry.

Or herself.

_~~some things never change~~ _

She pushes a lock of hair behind her left ear and chuckles when he cracks a joke about the “element of surprise”, trying hard, so very hard, to ignore the weight of his hand against the small of her back when he catches her after a near slip on a puddle.

Her neighborhood is a suburban, quiet sort of place, and they're forming a loop before rounding at a block. A dog barks from behind a fence, and the leaves collecting on the sidewalk lay motionless. Droplets of rain begin to ease against her skin, but the tension in her shoulders does not dissipate.

“When’s Nathan getting back?”

She blinks.

 _Well, that was random._ “Um. Next week, I think.”

“He’s been gone for a while.” Warren quirks an eyebrow, and Max sighs.

“It’s not forever. He comes and goes.”

“What does he even do? For Pan Estates."

She resists the prickling irritation in the back of her mind and cocks her head, letting out a puff of air.

“I'm not...quite sure. He's just trying to transition into taking charge, I guess."

“Oh.”

Yeah. “The entire point to his mom’s“—emphasis on _mom_ —“business is Arcadia Bay. I’m lucky he’s even putting a few days aside to see me every now and then.” Her tone comes across as much more bitter than she plans, and that makes her start.

_~~i’m fine, it’s okay, go ahead, i’ll wait for you it’s okay it’s okay~~ _

“That sucks,” Warren says, and it’s blatant and truthful and his eyes droop once he sees her expression crumble, just a little, if only for a moment.

“It’s fine.”

They tread further along the path in silence before he opens his mouth, speaking.

“Are you going to move with him?”

His voice is a foreign noise now, distant and ringing.

“Move?” Max echoes. Warren’s stopped walking; they’re standing in front of her—their, she reminds herself, hers and Nathan’s, their—house now, lingering by the front door. She can see Warren’s car from here, parked out front. He’s replaced the used one from all those years ago. Something about the change makes her mouth a little dry, and it tugs at her memory like a sad revelation. She’s not sure why.

“After he takes over his mom’s company. He's probably going to have to relocate. What are you going to do?” His tone is gentle, but there’s something urgent behind it, something probing.

Max is silent.

“You need to stay in Seattle to study. Don’t you? And you just got that job.”

She hates it. She hates that he’s laid out the questions she’s been contemplating and pushing, just like that. She’s holding out, reluctant to face the questions, because it’s always _Wait, just wait for him, just wait for Nathan. Think about it later later think about this later_ —

“I,” she says. Warren’s moving toward her now, and she’s unconsciously backing away, as though he might force her against her will to choose, to make a decision right here. Right now.

“How long are you going to wait?” he whispers, and she sucks in a sharp breath, because he’s pressed a hand against her cheek and he’s hovering over her, casting shadows over her face in all the wrong angles, all wrong, wrong, wrong, so very, very wrong—

He’s grown so much, she thinks, and she hates it. She hates the fact that he’s grown into this. This gentleman, this patient, smiling figure that’s forced her to face her doubts, who's loomed over this mess throughout all this time. This mess that is her, a collective series of _what if_ s, a girl that’s slowly wearing out.

She is so tired.

She wants to laugh.

This isn’t a post-high school reunion. It’s not just friendship, either. She’s not that stupid—just barely, barely bordering on not quite knowing what this is.

“I miss him,” Max breathes, and it’s a hollow sort of rasp. “I miss—I miss _it_. I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she chokes, and she reaches out to grip Warren’s shirt with trembling fingers, because she’s scared. She’s afraid, she’s afraid of losing Nathan. She misses it. All of it. Taking candid photos of each other, having him guide her hands as she tries to cook with him, taping silly Polaroids to the bathroom mirror each morning with a small note,

_~~good morning, i love you, have a good day today~~ _

and talking about the future with glints of hope in their eyes—hoping, dreaming, not thinking.

_~~a future, together~~ _

_~~max, wait for me~~ _

“You don’t need to wait,” Warren murmurs. He strokes her cheek and pushes a lock of hair behind her ear, and she shudders. He is so close. “I’m here.”

“Warren,” she breathes.

His hand rests on her hip, the other taking her cheek, gently.

His lips are soft, moving against her in an unfamiliar rhythm.

She can’t. She can’t do it, she’s—

Suddenly he’s ripping away, crying out in pain and collapsing to the floor.

“Warren!” she exclaims, moving forward on instinct, and she hears a strangled noise of distress, of immense rage. She looks up.

The newcomer’s chest is heaving, the fabric of his grey sweater rising and falling with each breath. His eyes are red, voice ragged, fist curled while the other clutches a box bound in bright green wrapping paper. A gift.

“Nathan,” she says, and her voice is so small.

“ _What the fuck are you doing?_ ” He’s bellowing at Warren, not her, and Warren looks up from the concrete, clutching his cheekbone. “You think you can just come onto someone else’s fucking girlfriend because I’m gone for a few months? Is that it? This is what I come home to? Max, you—“

Just like that, he’s cut off, because Warren’s landed the next blow square in Nathan’s face. “Don’t fucking pin it on her!” he shouts, and reaches forward to grip Nathan by the collar and wrestle him against the side of his car. There’s blood discoloring Nathan’s sweater and lips. His nose may or may not be broken.

“Warren, stop!”

“At least I don’t make her question every single fucking aspect of her future when we talk,” Warren growls. “You think you’re doing her a favor with your stupid Skype calls? You wanna pick up your phone every ten minutes while you’re spending time with her? Be my guest. But I’m not going to let that happen,” Warren says. Nathan’s glare splinters for a brief moment, and he looks over at Max, eyes widening.

She’s panicking, running over to break them apart before they break each other.

“Shut the fuck up!” Nathan grabs Warren’s hands and tries to pry them off, but there is none of the gentleness in Warren's touch that is there when he takes her hand, when he runs his fingers through her hair.

“Do you love her?” Warren bellows, and Nathan freezes.

“What? Of course I fucking do!” Nathan’s voice cracks. "You don't understand," he spits, and his eyes darken. "You wouldn't. Fuck you. You would never understand. I always thought you were a bit of a bitch, but god. _Fuck_ you," he says, and Max shakes her head frantically, saying "No, no, no," while Nathan digs his nails into the back of Warren's hands. "You're fucking dead to me. You're dead. You hear me? You hear me? You're dead."

When Warren's grip works loose, Nathan recoils, as though he's been burned. He picks up the green box, stares at it, and presses it in Max's hands. Their hands do not touch.

Every line in his face is full of life, of pain and frustration and disbelief. Blood drips from his nose, staining the front of his shirt.

Her eyes are watering.

"I'm s-sorry, Nathan."

He shakes his head.

There is nothing left to say.

 


End file.
